What Does the Rise of the Basic Attention Token (BAT) Mean?

By Ghazala Rizvi

Posted on Nov. 5, 2018

Basic Attention Token (BAT) is an open-source and decentralized ad exchange platform which is based on Ethereum and was founded by Brendan Eich.

The current functioning of digital marketing mechanisms, evidenced mainly in so-called "social networks", focuses on the interaction between three main groups: users, content creators, and advertisers. Among these, the dynamic basically consists in redirecting users towards content that they consider attractive, and once there, they present advertisements about certain products and/or services.

Of course, behind this mechanics operate optimization algorithms to generate greater exposure to certain content, attract more visits, and accumulate more clicks and interactions. Also, of course, these numbers convert into money. However, in this ecosystem, in particular, the influence and power of the external parties or the intermediary is really important. Giants such as Google and Facebook generate large amounts of money through the accumulation of statistics of their users which are sold to advertisers so they can develop more effective marketing campaigns.

At the same time, content creators receive little or nothing of the capital they generate through their creations since the business model prioritizes the profits of the platform before those of the creator users. Inclusive advertisers must face the risks that the statistical packages they are buying are not completely accurate, and worse, that their ads are not seen thanks to ad-blockers that users install in their browsers nowadays.

Basic Attention Token (BAT):

Being a token registered in the blockchain of Ethereum under the specifications of the ERC20 standard, the BAT is designed to be a tool that allows the exchange of value between a network of users, content creators, and advertisers without the need to depend on intermediaries that extract the largest percentage of the value generated by the said network.

Designed precisely as a complement, the operation of the BAT is based on the use of the Brave web browser whose main objective is to provide a navigation tool where users can select the advertisements that best suit their interests, while at the same time, they can pay directly to creators of content with cryptocurrencies and thus change the usual monetization scheme.Similarly, advertisers can benefit from having more reliable and accurate market statistics of users as well as access to higher percentages of the profits generated in the network.

The BAT issue began on June 1st when its Initial Currency Offering (ICO) got off to a good start by raising more than $ 35 million in less than a minute. Like all ERC20 tokens, its issuance was limited, and in the case of BAT, 1,500 million tokens were created, of which 200 million corresponded to the developer team, 300 million were destined to encourage the growth of the user community, and the remaining 1,000 million were put on sale at the ICO for users. Currently, tokens can be acquired and exchanged through a small list of exchange houses where at the time of publishing this note, they trade at around 20 US cents for each BAT.

In summary, the Basic Attention Token is just a digital token that combined with the technical advantages presented by the Brave web browser platform will serve as a currency of exchange with which users, creators, and advertisers can exchange value units directly between them, and thus return the protagonism in digital marketing networks to those who really generate capital within it.